German/Scottish connection - help and ideas, please!

[Barmaid]

I am helping my partner trace his family history in Scotland but we have hit a brick wall with his grandfather. Unfortunately, all his family are dead or he has lost contact so there is no one to ask.

He seems to recall that his grandfather may have been german and there is some suggestion that he was repatriated during the second world war. Quite possibly. I've found his grandfather and grandmother's marriage. It gives the name of grandad - Frank Henshall (query is this really Franz Hentschel?!) who was a musician. The marriage cert gives the name of Frank's ma and pa - Frank (commercial traveller) and Freda (nee Williams). I can find no trace in the UK of a Frank Henshall marrying a Freda Williams. Nor can I find a birth of a Frank Henshall in 1900 +/- 5 years. Nor in fact can I find a death for Frank Henshall (I have found the death of grandma, but by then she has reverted to her maiden name).

It seems the family rumour may well be correct - so any ideas where I even start with German ancestry, please?! I am no novice to this (been doing it for 20 odd years), but this one has me completely flummoxed.

[craft1948]

There are quite a few Franz Hentschels in the ancestry.co.uk site but you need an overseas premium membership to view the details......

[craft1948]

is this him......Frans Hentschel born 1900 Germany living in London in 1901....father Friederick and mother Frieda?

[Barmaid]

thanks Dancairo - am already wading through some of those.

Craft - well bugger me! Can't understand how I missed that one. But date of birth fits. Father's name doesn't, but then it could have been a mistake. Certainly gives me something to go on. Thank you so much!! Just proves another set of eyes can make the world of difference. Thanks!!!

[craft1948]

In 1980 there's a H Hentschel showing in the Aberdeen Phonebook

[Barmaid]

Well he is proving elusive on the1911 - but I have found a repatriation card in the National Archives. Looks as though there is a possibility his family could have been jewish. That could explain why there is no trace.

[craft1948]

Well done BM.....and good luck....I'll keep having a potter around....

[dothawkes31]

Many years ago I was a member of the Anglo-german Family History Society, they have some fantastic archives and great members , try contacting them on a one name search:
http://www.agfhs.org.uk/

[Barmaid]

Thanks Dot - another site to tinker with!

But matters become curiouser and curiouser. My OH informs me that he has an old photograph which he was told was his grandads. Written on the back is "King Peter of Yugoslavia embarking, 1942, HMS B***r". I've established that this was probably HMS Biter on 7 October 1942 at Scapa. The plot well and truly thickens. Was he repatriated (I don't think he would have spoken hardly any german given he was in a children's home by age 11 and apart from his family) or did he do something else during the war?!!!!

[dothawkes31]

If he was in this country during the first world war, his parents may have been interned at White City, in which case he would have been probablt put in a childrens home then, well maybe his father was , if his mother was British she wouldn't have been,
After that experience, he would likely get out of the UK as soon as any hint of another War with Germany was on the cards as he would have felt the same thing might happen to him.

[Barmaid]

Sorry, I've missed a bit out Dot. I've found his parents and grandparents on 1901 Census. By 1911, I can only find him (he is in a children's home at Mile End by then) and his dad (who is working at a hotel in Bradford as a kitchen porter). Can't find mum - yet (she was german too).

Family gossip states that he was repatriated during WW2. At the repatriation tribunal he says he does not want to be repatriated (and why would he, he came to this country at the age of 1, and I doubt his german was very good if he was placed in a children's home between 1901 and 1911). There is a further record concerning him but it is closed due to the sensitive nature of the information contained within.

His wife did have another child in 1942, not sure whether he is the father or not - only just ordered the birth certificate. I rather suspected that whether he was repatriated or not, he left the family to make things easier for them, since I have no doubt there would have been massive anti german feeling in Glasgow. Even though his name was "anglicised" by then, he definitely had an "illegal aliens registration card" so people would have known.

[Barmaid]

A little more progress. It appears that Freda was incarcerated in Claybury Lunatic Asylum in 1911, where she died aged 33. Frederick appears to have been working in "Little Germany" in Bradford.

[dothawkes31]

Well they certainly moved about alot, something must have kept them having to change jobs and homes and counties and countries!!! On the 1911 is she recorded as insane? That's a rotten start for anyone being moved around and put in homes, were there any other children? If there were did they stay in England?

[Barmaid]

Rather helpfully, the Census enumerator didn't mark whether she was insane or not. She is a "patient" there though. I am currently wading through the pages and pages of stuff on ancestry to see if I can find her in the London Poor Law Records.

I don't think there were any other children. Certainly haven't found any - yet! (Although with this family, who knows what I shall dig up).

My poor OH is still reeling from the shock of last weekend (I had to tell him I had found his long lost brother, only to have to report that he died 3 weeks ago) never mind the fact that his great gran was in Claybury!!!

[dothawkes31]

Oh my Lord that's awful to have found his brother but missed him!!!! How do you come to terms with that? It's true that no matter how long you have been doing this, there are always new things to find! I;m still looking for the 'family' my greta grandad had in newcastle during WW1 whilst his own family, (my Grandma and her brothers and sisters) scraped a living in Todmorden.